This is the kind of thing that has earned your spot in the sidebar of our blog. Quality, not quantity. It's good to see you back in action. You've been missed.

Now, I may live in a cave, but not under a rock. I can't believe this never dotted my radar. This post is the first I've heard of Tufeld's transcendence, nearly a month after the fact. I can only imagine that the Internet was broken when it happened. How else could I have missed such news?

Robot B-9 is second only to the starship Enterprise in the icons of my science fiction root structure. B-9 was the world's R2-D2 before Star Wars' emotive bleeper stole our hearts and minds.

It was Tufeld's voice performance which made B-9 the perfect robotic companion. And, I finally realize that this character is the (previously undetermined) source of my fascination with all 'sentient' computer/robot stories.

I missed you too! I was really suffering from some huge blogger malaise and it's been a tough year dealing with the layoff and trying to find a new job. No one wants to hire me. It's like they think I fiddled about with paperbacks and read in a corner all day. As another hard working bookseller do you ever get that same thing from people?

...And yes when I think robot, my brain goes right to B-9 but now that Tufeld and Bob May have both passed...I just keep getting this sad image of a dusty B-9 slumped over in a corner in my head. So sad.

I don't find that people overtly disregard book sellers, but I get a lot of folks who want to work in a book store because they believe we get to sit around reading all day.So, yeah, I kinda know what you mean.

You should try your hand at drawing that vision of B-9 you described. The idea brings to mind an old tribute poster for Mel Blanc, titled "Speechless". http://www.animationartwork.com/artwork/sku10019